1. Field
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for automating or managing business practices. More particularly, this disclosure relates to automation of the business practice of market analysis and demand surveying especially for optimization of advertising campaigns. This disclosure also relates to usage of short message services and other signaling methods for improving the effectiveness of surveys of public sentiment.
2. Background
The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Need for Measuring Off-Line Advertising Efficiency
The combined cost of advertising products by both manufacturers and retailers has reached such prevalence that well over $100 billion is now being spent on a yearly basis between the analog media of TV, radio, newsprint, magazines, and outdoor billboards. The sophisticated development efforts invested into the advertising content is so high that the industry judges its own work products as an art form. Multiple advertising organizations grant awards to recognize achievement of intangible goals including for example creative excellence and innovation in advertising (www.clioawards.com). While conventional advertising on analog media is large and established, these off-line formats are quickly losing share to on-line advertising. The fraction moving to the internet is growing so quickly that on-line advertising's share of total media ad spending will more than double, from 6 percent in 2006 to over 12 percent share in 2010, and more than 13 percent in 2011. (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005549)
However, as favorable as this market share situation is for commercial websites and on-line media, the parasitic growth in internet advertising is becoming disastrous for conventional media. Many newspapers and radio stations are facing a budgetary crisis due to a loss of advertising revenues. The reason for their loss in market share is for the most part due to the fact that these analog media types cannot provide real accountability for advertising campaign performance. Because of this deficiency, advertisers are spending their marketing dollars in channels with knowable performance.
Weakness in Prior Art Assessment of Off-Line Media Audiences
Advertising in traditional off-line media such at TV, radio, newsprint and billboards is inherently unaccountable. More often than not, there is no direct relationship between what is advertised and how much is actually seen by a viewer. For example, a magazine's circulation count is nothing more than a representation of a potential audience. It has little to do with who has seen an advertisement, when, for what period of time and whether the reader is in a demographic an advertiser is trying to reach. Unlike on-line advertising or advertising on the internet, which is inherently quantifiable and measurable, off-line advertising is in fact a faith-based business that until now has been held unaccountable for its performance.
Nielsen Media Research (www.nielsenmedia.com) has produced measures of the TV audiences since the 1950's. But the means that Nielsen and their competitors employ to account for viewer numbers and sentiment are difficult to implement and can be burdensome on audience members. In the past, in order to compile circulation counts, Nielsen has asked viewers to participate by filling out a diary of the programs watched in their home for a one week period.
Such physical measurement means which attempt to gain accurate statistics by capturing a statistically significant sample are based upon pre-selected and fixed populations and therefore arguably are not fully representative of the true or complete audience. These means may record some values regarding viewer-ship numbers, but they are not fully accountable in terms of quantifiable measures of reaction to the advert, much less emotional reaction to the advertised product. Moreover, although there is an array of disparate approaches such as sampling, surveying, polling and the like, there is no large network-centric scalable model for the complete control of off-line analog advertising assets in such a way that can be easily measured across multiple media and in real-time anywhere in the world.
Need for More Effective Advertising Methods
Internet based advertising has had a significant impact on the sales of advertisements made in conventional media. In order to make up for loss of advertising revenues to Internet based media, and also giant mega-advertising channels such as Google, conventional media need ways to maximize the value of their strengths or actually leverage their existing size and ubiquity advantages.
Because internet measurement tools are being constantly developed, on-line advertising is increasing at the expense of off-line advertising. This situation will only become worse for the conventional media channels if no changes can be instituted. There therefore exists a need for new tools to assist off-line media channels to become more efficient with measurement and management of their own advertisements.
Consumers are increasingly willing to adopt technological means to decrease their costs and leverage their time and influence as a potential customer. Influence of new technologies on customer spending habits is evidenced by the decrease in sales of hard copies of music or CD's by strictly electronic or MP3 based formats. Likewise consumers are less willing to pay for hard copy magazine and newspaper subscriptions and are becoming accustomed to not paying for this print content as they download identical but free electronic copies over the internet. Conventional advertising channels are therefore looking for new and more efficient ways to pull customers to their media types.
Prior Art in Advertising Optimization
Historically, probably the most prevalent means to attract customers to a particular product or retail establishment has been through creative advertisements. However the ubiquity of advertisements has also become one of its weaknesses. This is because the massive amount of directions and sources which constantly are presented to potential consumers has tended to desensitize them to all but the most effective pitches. Good or service providers attempt to improve their chances of getting in front of the target populations with their desired demographics by mounting a multi-pronged advertising campaign. An advertising campaign typically includes, for example, commercials on broadcast and cable television, 15 second radio spots, a newspaper ad run daily, and magazine advertisements running monthly.
In order to increase interest by audience members in viewing constituent ads of the campaign, vendors or good or service providers often include a special promotion within the ad. Such offers or discounts within ads have also become so commonplace that consumers have come to expect and assume their existence and this has led to the lessening of their individual impact on viewer interest. So too, the perpetual existence of special offers and discounts has negatively impacted the bottom line economics of the vendors. Therefore, advertising becomes a black hole into which corporate profits are being subsumed. Moreover the appearance of over hyped sales may discount the actual image of the company or associated brand in the eyes of the consumers.
Need for Improved Off-Line Advertising Campaigns
The purpose for setting up an off line advertising campaign is to monitor, analyze and ultimately optimize the performance of the advertisements contained within the campaign. Each campaign can have multiple advertisements and importantly each campaign name can be associated with many different media buys. So for example, an off-line advertising campaign might be called “Fall Flavors” could be created for Starbucks and be placed in newspapers advertisements, magazines, and radio. Also, there can be many different newspaper ads being purchased with different advertising rates and frequencies.
Moreover, each type off off-line advertising campaign, be it TV, radio, newsprint, magazine, or billboards and; kiosks will have certain types of media buys or implementations. For example, media buys in TV may be for purchasing “spot” ads. These ads may last between 15 to 30 seconds depending upon the television network, time of day, etc. Radio spot ads will generally last a shorter time (i.e. 5 or 10 seconds), but in both cases the ads will have a defined duration and a specific frequency of broadcast. The frequency pertains to how often each ad runs a day or week or month. TV and radio spot ads might for example run several times a day, once a day or weekly.
Prior Art in Off-Line Advertising Campaigns
The off-line advertising campaign is for the most part a necessary component of sales for a vendor, merchant, manufacturer, or supplier, any of whom frequently need to make a placement distribution. But it remains a component which is for the most part un-measurable and therefore generally un-knowable in its ultimate value or impact on the bottom line of sales or especially marketing image. Moreover, most multi-channel campaigns are difficult to evaluate and manage because of their widespread nature. There is no overall tool which allows the viewing of the individual campaign components while at the same time allowing their speedy control and modification. Therefore, the burden of running an advertising campaign generally overwhelms attempts to completely organize them by either advertising agencies or good or service suppliers themselves.
In all cases, the purpose of quantifying the cost of the media buy, frequency, and media venue is to arrive at a cost per click for the media purchase. Although this unit of measurement is extremely common in the on-line world, it is virtually non existent in the off-line world. Therefore a need exists to provide this data to advertisers. An advertiser or publisher will be able to correctly value the specific ad within the media venue when armed with this information.
Improving the ease of the conduction of off-line advertising campaigns while also imbuing them with more accurate control requires faster feedback and analysis of consumer sentiment, and faster methods for incorporating results from customer interactions. These factors have led prior inventors to try to surmount these problems for example by improving the analysis of the efficiency of advertisements, the typing of customers, and improving the speed of making rate calculations.
FIG. 1 illustrates a functional overview of the participant interactions and management operations that currently are typically practiced during the conduction of advertising campaigns utilizing conventional media. FIG. 1 shows a good or service provider process 110, a creative process 120, a media process 130, and a customer process 140. FIG. 1 indicates, for prior art, the parties necessary for each phase of management of an advertising campaign 100. A vendor 4 or manufacturer 6 works with an advertising body 8 to create creative or advertising media content 10. This advertisement may take the form of a print ad in a newspaper or magazine 12, a multi-second spot on a radio station 14, or a commercial on broadcast or cable television 16. The vendor 4 or manufacturer 6 then collaborates with the advertising body 8 to select the placement of the various adverts, and also to set their scheduling of appearance.
When these adverts are broadcast or published, the various media ad content 10 are viewed by the customer or consumer or viewer 2. The customer 2 makes purchase of the goods from the vendor 4 or manufacturer 6, both of whom accumulate the pertinent information regarding sales volumes and customer information into a vendor survey and sales info database 24.
In some cases, the media advert 10 may include a short text message or SMS or short code 20 associated with the ads which are likewise viewed by a customer 2. The customer 2 may respond to the short code message 20 and the response data is collected by the vendor 4, the manufacturer 6, or the advertising body 8, among others in a customer response database 22.
As shown in FIG. 1, the prior art provides only unstructured means by which the specific responses of each customer 2 are collected and utilized. This situation is depicted in FIG. 1 by the broken or dashed lines connections between the customer 2 and the customer response data 22 and the vendor and the vendor survey data 24. It is clear from FIG. 1 that the usage, for example, by the vendor 4 or advertising body 8 of the vendor survey data 24, and customer response data 22, to influence decision making regarding the advertising campaign is not direct. The feedback process in prior art is based upon incomplete information because these two sets of data are both collected in an informal fashion and are not centrally stored.
FIG. 2 illustrates a functional overview of the processing procedures that are typically involved in advertising campaign management using conventional methods and for which the participant interactions are shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, in the prior art, the creation of the creative content of the advertisement 11 is adjusted by iteration between the creative process 120 and the good or service provider process 110. The customer 2 interacts with the media adverts 10 in the media process 130 and the customer process 140.
Also shown in FIG. 2 is the new advertisement campaign process in which the good or service providers begins the conduction of an advertising campaign with the intent that the customer 2 responds to the media advert 10 by making a purchase. The campaign intent is summarized in a new campaign specifications 250 and a creative process is thereby initiated by capturing the specifications 250 in a prepare advert creative process 260 which after an iterative examination by the good or service provider undergoes an approval process 220 which either requires further work in a prepare advert creative process 260 or results in an approved creative advert 11.
A select schedule, channel, and duration process 270 is used to determine placement of the advert creative 11 on the alternative options for media channels. Placement location is based in part upon a pricing calculation for each of the alternative media channels. Once the advertising media content 10 is published or broadcast, the customer 2 views the content and may react with some action within the customer process 140.
If the customer 2 does happen to execute a make purchase process 280, the purchase volume information is collected as a matter of normal business by the vendor 4 and manufacturer 6 into the sales info database 24. At some regular interval such as weekly, monthly or yearly, these parties perform some analysis as to sales volume and thereby generate a sales report. These sales volume reports may then be used to compile sales projections and also to perform an assessment of the overall efficiency of the advertising campaign.
The advertising media content 10 may include for example a banner message on a television ad 16, or a magazine ad 12 may include embedded instructions which inform that the customer 2 can for example use their mobile phone to text a short message code 20 to some messaging address for more information. Alternatively, the ad media content 10 may encourage the customer 2 to direct their computer internet browser to view a particular internet web site. In these cases, the number of visits to the website or the number of messages received may be collected into the customer response data 22 or the vendor survey and sales info data 24.
The survey portion of the sales info database 24 may also consist in part of formally collected customer responses to specific questions such as obtained for example from product registration. The vendor 4 or manufacturer 6 may also informally obtain other types of information such as unsolicited consumer reactions and customer sentiments which may generally arrive in unstructured formats and be accumulated by these groups into the sales info database 24.
Volume of response to the embedded response requests may also be accumulated into the customer response database 22. The vendor 4 or advertising body 8 can based upon the customer response data 22 and the sales volume data 24 try to generate estimates of the efficiency of the advertising campaign in general and also for the relative efficiency of the ads on the various alternative media spots.
However, several key processes and information flows which may occur in prior art methods to conduct advertising campaigns are shown within FIGS. 1 and 2 as broken or dashed lines. These figures are meant to depict the incomplete nature of these lines of communication. Evaluation of advert creative 11 in prior art is ineffective and incomplete because capture therein of purchase information and especially customer feedback based on the advertising media 10 are not quantitative and formally collected. All prior art methods are therefore deficient in their ability to serve as a business platform to expedite management and optimization of advertising campaigns for not only vendors and advertising agencies but also customers. Conventional methods for management of off-line advertising may provide means to include in an advertisement the instructions to respond to a survey. They also do at times for example collect product registration information, but the information and responses are informally collected into what is depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2 as the customer response data 22.
Furthermore, prior art offers no potential sources of added benefit to the customer 2 beyond that which is evidenced by the advert media 10 which is immediately soliciting the customer response. Accordingly, it is commonplace that the level of customer response is minimally motivated. No information, much less incentive, exists for the customer 2 to seek out or pay more attention to one advert versus another except based on some direct and immediate value. Moreover, the usefulness of these response entries in the customer response data 22 is diminished because no formal means exist to compile or to search these data based on advanced criteria and background or even demographic information or personalized information regarding the individual customers.
Even in the instance of the customer responding to a specific advert with a short message, the overall advertising results are currently limited by their usefulness in overall management of the advertising campaign because of the inaccuracy and lack of speed in collection. This delay in acquisition occurs because of the indirect nature of the communication channels from customer 2 to response data 22. Therefore the contribution of any collected data to the creative process loop 120 and channel decision 240 and schedule decision 230 processes made with the good or service provider with the advertising body 8 is minimized.
None of the above mentioned methods or prior art are able to provide the quantitative assessment of advertisements in magazines, newspapers, and even on radio and television to capture customer response data in a short time frame and with either sufficient inherent information content or quantity of background information on accumulated customer info to support useful statistical analysis and much less efficiently compile this information to drive scheduling and channel decisions for real-time adjustment of the overall advertising campaign. Most importantly no existing methods provide immediate and continuous evaluation of the advertising campaign which allow adjustments to be made to optimize effectiveness in real-time.
Moreover, none of these prior methods have means to provide rewards to a customer in a way that helps defray the self perceived cost of imposition on them to participate in the advert evaluation process. Finally, no existing methods or systems provide means to intelligently provide additional incentives for participation and response to a user or customer based on knowledge of their previous habits and tastes.